Betrayal (Vanish Book Two) (7 page)

“No, not just that.” I realized I hadn’t told
him, or anyone. “She was going to sell me, sell my power.”

“That’s not reason enough to—”

“There are a million things that I need to
know, and if you don’t understand that…. I’m not asking you or
anyone else to go with me; this is just something I need to do,” I
proclaimed.

“If you’re going, then I’m coming with
you.”

“It’s not safe for you to come with me.”

“It’s not safe to go, period, but I’m not
letting you go alone,” he argued

“Fine tomorrow morning, we’ll go.”

He went upstairs to get dressed. I lay in bed
thinking about what would happen tomorrow. I needed answers, but
more than that, I hoped these answers somehow proved my mom
innocent, but I didn’t see that happening. Before I knew it, I was
asleep, something I thought would never come.

The three quiet girls standing in front of me
didn’t frighten me, though I felt they should. Their eyes were
fixed on me, but they didn’t move. I stood there as calm as I could
manage, the greatest power I had to claim. I knew this would be
bad; I could see the malicious look in each of their eyes. They
took a step forward, and I took two steps back. They stayed where
they were without a word. I thought about running, but I didn’t
know where I was, deep in the woods. The trees didn’t glow, so I
knew I wasn’t near Elizabeth and George’s anymore. I also knew I
could be in some real danger.

Finally, I spoke. “Are you with the
Alliance?” I asked, keeping the fear far away from my voice.

“The Alliance?” one of the girls laughed. “Oh
the Alliance is nothing compared to us.”

Frozen in fear, I hadn’t noticed their
bright-red locks streaming down. The same red hair that I had. Nor
had I noticed, that the eyes that bore into mine were the exact
shade of bright green that I stared back with.

“So who are y—you?” I stammered. The calm had
been washed away, replaced with unmistakable horror.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” a different
girl spoke. They each had different features, none the same as the
other, the same as me, but if I was standing beside them, we could
all be mistaken for quadruplets.

“What do you want?” I choked.

“Well that’s hard to answer. I guess it
depends on what you decide to do,” the girl on the right
threatened.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

My eyes popped open. The afternoon sun was
blinding. The clock said it was two. I got out of bed and threw on
some jeans and a black T-shirt. I ran out the front door and
searched for Dante. I finally found him at George and Elizabeth’s
sitting with them at the table. They all looked over with
disappointment.

“You told them,” I accused.

“I had to, Scarlett,” Dante reasoned.

“You cannot leave here,” Elizabeth
protested.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t thank you two enough,
but I need to do this.” I looked over at Dante, “with or without
your help.”

“No.” Elizabeth said and walked away.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean,
no
?” I
objected.

“I mean,” she said as she turned around.
“You’re not going.”

“So you’re going to keep me here forever like
a prisoner?”

“Honey, she’s right,” George finally
spoke.

“You know I can’t let her do this, and you
know why,” Elizabeth disagreed

“The Alliance? I’ll be fine. Skylar somehow
managed to come here. Everyone is safer if I leave, and that
includes me.”

“That’s not it,” Elizabeth said with her back
turned to me.

“I’m sorry, but this is something I need to
do. She’s my mother, but she’s never been a mother to me, and then
she does this…” I trailed off.

“That’s where you’re wrong, she’s—” Elizabeth
started.

“Elizabeth, we need to let her do this. She
will find out what she needs to… on her own.”

I looked at both of them, switching my eyes
between them every few seconds. It was like they were speaking in
codes or something, like they knew something I didn’t.

“I will come back… if I’m welcome, but I need
to confront her.”

“I’m sorry. I know. This is more about you
getting hurt, than what could result.” She grabbed two bags of dirt
off of the table.

“Thank you Elizabeth. I’ll come back. I
promise.”

“If you’re going, I’m going,” Dante said.

“You don’t have to. It’s your choice,” I
murmured.

“I’m not letting you go alone.”

“Here take this, too,” Elizabeth said as she
grabbed a cell phone off the table. Since Dante already had one, I
took it and put it in my pocket.

“Good luck,” George said as we walked out the
door.

When we reached the car, it was obvious how
nervous Dante was. He put the bags in the glove compartment, and as
he did, I noticed his hands were shaking.

“You don’t have to do this.” I looked over at
him. “I can find another way, or you could let me borrow your
car.”

“No, I’m not going to let you do this alone.
I’m sure the whole thing with the Alliance is exaggerated. I’ve
never heard of them going after someone to that extent, no matter
what the circumstances.”

“Well I hope you’re right,” I smiled the best
fake smile I could. Just like in my dream last night, I needed to
appear calm and confident. I watched the road ahead covered on both
sides with trees, when suddenly everything changed. There was
nothing around at all, just long grass and fields. I looked over at
Dante to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

“My powers have gotten stronger,” he
explained. “I think you had a big part in that.”

“How?” I wondered.

“Just being near you, I feel stronger. I bet
if I tried to take us right to your mom’s house I could, but then I
might not be able to get us out if I needed to,” he sighed.

“How far away are we? And how did you take
the car with us?”

“We’re not very far, and I don’t know I just
tried it, and it worked. It was actually less difficult than I
thought.”

“Are we going to be passing the mental
hospital?” I asked. I still wanted to know what the deal with that
was. Now that I knew about our powers, I knew what went on at that
hospital could have been even weirder than what I thought
before.

“No. We already did.”

“We’re already that close?” I asked,
stunned.

“Yeah, coming from her house took a lot
longer because there were a lot of stops, and I didn’t teleport
us.”

“So this is it huh? In a few short minutes, I
will get to confront her.”

The wind blew like crazy, and it looked like
it was about to storm. The ground was wet because it had been
raining earlier.

“Yep,” he took in a deep breath. As we turned
down the road, I thought I was going to be sick. He drove right
past the house.

“What are you doing?”

“No one’s home. So, we can wait inside and
catch them by surprise. I’m going to park the car down the
street.”

“Okay.” As I went to get out of the car, he
grabbed my arm. “What?” I asked. He reached under the seat and
pulled out a manila envelope with my name on it.

“Here,” he said as he handed it to me. I
recognized it; it was the only file that was in Meadowbrook, the
one with my name on it.

“You took this? You had this the whole time?”
I yelled.

“Yes, I just thought with everything going on
it would be better to wait. I never looked at what’s inside of it
though, I swear.” I couldn’t doubt the look on his face; it was so
sincere.

I went to open it. I wanted to see what was
inside, but Dante stopped me.

“What? I thought you were giving it to me so
I could read it.”

“Let’s get over to the house first; they
could get home any minute,” he urged.

All the doors and windows were locked so we
waited in the back yard. I ripped open the file; there were quite a
few pages, the first was about my medication.

“All of the medications were to stop my
powers,” I said in shock, still staring down at the page, I flipped
it over. “They were watching me, they wrote down all of the times I
saw ghosts, in detail what I said, what I did, everything.”

“How would they know… if you didn’t even…” he
trailed off.

“I don’t know,” I went to the next page. I
gasped. “My birth certificate, do you know what this means? I could
find my father.” A huge gust of wind swept the entire file out of
my hands and into a puddle. “No,” I screamed as I ran over.

Mud covered every soggy page, and the ink
ran, leaving it all illegible. I could see one thing for certain,
and it was even more shocking than finding out what a monster my
mother was. The name that was listed under mother was not hers. I
could tell that the first name was six letters my mother—or whoever
the hell she was—was named Ann.

“I’m so sorry, Scarlett.”

“She’s not my mom,” I said in a dull,
lifeless tone as I stared ahead at nothing in particular.

“What?” Dante asked.

“Her name, it’s not on the birth
certificate.”

“Then whose is?”

“I don’t know; I couldn’t read it, but it was
definitely six letters.” I heard a car door shut in the front
yard.

“They’re home.”

We stayed close to the back of the house,
peeking through the windows every now and then. She was alone, that
was a good thing. She went downstairs and while she did, we checked
the front door to see if it was locked, it wasn’t.

We walked in quietly, finding the perfect
spot to hide and wait for the right moment. Dante hid behind the
couch to wait for my cue. I hid right beside the doorway to the
kitchen. When she came up the stairs, I would confront her. Then it
hit me, through all the nerves and anticipation, I had forgotten
that I could go invisible and have some fun first. I ran over to
Dante and told him my plan, and that he should find a better place
to hide. Then I went invisible while I stood in the kitchen
waiting.

Eventually, she came up the stairs. I decided
to start small, knocking the pepper shaker off the counter. She
looked a little confused and walked over to pick it up. Then, she
carried on into the living room.

Dante was hiding upstairs. I went up there
and decided to go through her room. At first, I was looking for
another copy of my birth certificate, but what I found was much
better. A duffel bag filled to the top with money, stacks and
stacks of hundred-dollar bills. It must have been the money she
made selling me and Grace to those men. I didn’t know how much it
was, but I was taking it. Being on the run, I would need it sooner
or later, at least some of it. I went down the stairs; she wasn’t
looking over so I put the money under the kitchen table.

I went back into the living room and knocked
a picture of me and her off of a shelf. She gasped.

“Hello?” In one quick swipe, I knocked
everything else off the shelf. “Hello?”

I could tell by the look on her face and the
tone of her voice, she was horrified, but I wasn’t done yet.

She screamed and ran into the kitchen. I
followed and knocked every last thing off of the counter, then I
opened every single cupboard and threw everything onto the floor.
She was sitting in the corner rocking when I decided to appear.

“Hey
Mom
,” my voice sounded evil, just
as I intended.

“Scarlett?” she said, shocked.

“What? Did you expect me to be dead
somewhere? I almost was, thanks to you.”

“Don’t talk to me like that, I’m your
mother!” She screamed.

“No you’re not,” the calmness of my voice was
driving her mad, I could tell.

“What do you want from me?” she yelled.

“Oh, just everything you’ve taken,” I stopped
and tapped my foot. “But wait, you can’t give that back can you?
No. So I guess I need you to pay me back, but what price could you
put on everything you’ve put me through?”

“I’m not giving you a thing,” she
screamed.

“I already have all of your money, but I
still don’t feel like that’s enough.”

She looked under the table and went to get up
and retrieve it. Before she could, I kicked her in the face, and
she fell back. She looked up at me helpless, with blood dripping
from her nose.

“Please,” she said in a sweet voice.

I clapped. “You really are a great actress,
but I’m not falling for it this time.” She reached her hand out to
me. “What so you can make me forget? Get your money back and sell
me all over again?”

“You’re confused honey—”

“I saw everything; I know what you did, for
the most part. Did you steal me from my real mother? Is that how
all of this worked?”

I noticed she was wearing a necklace. It was
a large heart pendant that was brown. I didn’t know why, but I had
an odd feeling about it. I moved closer and ripped it off her
neck.

The pendant started to glow. I put it in my
pocket. “Don’t worry I have others,” she cackled.

“Dirt,” I whispered. “How did you get
that?”

“Like I said, you’re confused help me up
and—“

“Okay I’ve had enough of this. I came here
for revenge, and this nice little chat just isn’t cutting it.” I
felt the insanity coursing through me. I looked over at the knives
and grabbed one. “Hmm I don’t know… I’m only going to get one shot
at this. Should I follow in your footsteps and opt for a shovel as
a murder weapon?”

“Please just stop,” she begged.

“You know what? You’re right. I didn’t only
come here for revenge. I came here for answers. Maybe if you answer
me, I’ll let you live.”

“Ask me anything,” she blurted.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“You know what, now tell me,” I screamed.

“Grace was after you, too, I was protecting
you,” her voice was so sincere, but I knew it was a lie, or at
least
half
a lie.